P H ATLANTIC C ROSSINGSpilgrimhopkins.com/images/PHHSFiles/AC_Dec07.pdf · 2019. 3. 13. ·...

ATLANTIC CROSSINGS

ENGLAND ~ BERMUDA ~ JAMESTOWN ~ ENGLAND ~ PLYMOUTHENGLAND ~ BERMUDA ~ JAMESTOWN ~ ENGLAND ~ PLYMOUTHENGLAND ~ BERMUDA ~ JAMESTOWN ~ ENGLAND ~ PLYMOUTHENGLAND ~ BERMUDA ~ JAMESTOWN ~ ENGLAND ~ PLYMOUTH Mayflower Sea Venture

PILGRIM HOPKINS HERITAGE SOCIETY

DDDDECEMBERECEMBERECEMBERECEMBER 2007 2007 2007 2007 VVVVOLUMEOLUMEOLUMEOLUME 1, I 1, I 1, I 1, ISSUESSUESSUESSUE 2 2 2 2

Stephen Hopkins and Pocahontas by Caleb Johnson

A s early as 1769, Thomas Mayo speculated that

Stephen Hopkins of Plymouth may be the same man who ship-wrecked in Bermuda in 1609. But it was not until my 1998 discovery of Stephen Hopkins’ origins in Hursley, that actual documents could be cited to show they were indeed the same. Since the Bermuda castaways built two ships and made it to Jamestown in 1610, we are then left with an inter-esting question—did Stephen Hopkins know Pocahontas? The question is an intriguing one. Stephen, in his later life at Plymouth, was associated with Squanto, even housing him in his house. Could Stephen have actually known and met the two most famous Indians in early American history? Pocahontas was the daughter of Powhattan, the Indian ruler of most of the tribes around Virginia. Her res-cue of John Smith from a death

sentence and her visits to Jamestown between 1607-1608 are legendary. But the famous Captain Smith returned to Eng-land in 1609, and Indian rela-tions took a major downturn; by the time Hopkins arrived in 1610, Pocahontas no longer vis-ited. Pocahontas would later be captured by Captain Samuel Argall, and returned a prisoner to Jamestown in March 1613. They tried to use her capture to negotiate with her father, Powhattan, to return stolen goods and several Englishmen

he was holding prisoner. After holding Pocahontas for a year, she began to sympathize with her captors, and fell in love with one of the colonists, John Rolfe, and married him in April 1614. There were only two minis-ters at Jamestown that could have performed the wedding ceremony: Alexander Whittaker and Richard Buck. The latter was Hopkins’ employer—he had hired Stephen to be his

continued on page 4

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

In this issue:

Hopkins Chest ................. 3

Biggest Achievement ...... 5

DNA Projects .................. 6

Truro Boyhood................ 9

PPPPAGEAGEAGEAGE 2222

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AAAATLANTICTLANTICTLANTICTLANTIC C C C CROSSINGSROSSINGSROSSINGSROSSINGS

O ur second year of opera-

tion is coming to a close

and we feel confident that a

lot more will be accomplished

in our third.

Cousins Susan Abanor and

Judith Brister have done an

outstanding job with the

newsletter and with the web-

site which is about to be

launched.

Dues letters for the 2008

period are in the process of

being sent out. When mailing

your dues be sure to include

the member update info so

that we can keep our member-

ship lists current.

In anticipation of our trien-

nial meeting in Plymouth in

September of 2008, anyone

interested in running for office

should send a note to the cor-

responding secretary with a

short bio and qualifications.

We will be electing a Gov-

ernor, Deputy Governor, Cor-

responding secretary, Mem-

bership secretary, Treasurer,

Historian and three members

to the board of assistants. The

two positions which do re-

quire some prior experience

are that of Historian and

Treasurer.

Any proposed alterations

to our bylaws should also be

submitted.

The Secretary will liaise

with the Deputy Governor

who is head of our Nominat-

ing Committee. We do hope to get a good expression of interest in the various project committees which are proposed here in the newsletter and on the web-page. ▄

T his issue features Caleb Johnson’s thoughts on the

possibility that Stephen Hop-kins may have known Poca-hontas in Virginia, Stephen A. Hopkins’ piece on an often overlooked achievement of his namesake , Mary Ames Mitchell’s speculations regard-ing the Hopkins links of an old family chest, and the reflec-tions of our Governor Chester Hopkins’ great uncle on his Truro boyhood. We’re most grateful for these diverse and interesting contributions, and hope they’ll inspire some of you Atlantic Crossings readers to send us equally interesting articles for our summer issue. We know there are many Hopkins stories to tell and mysteries to unravel. For instance, was Constance,

wife of Daniel Doane, one of Constance (Hopkins) Snow's daughters? Where did all the families go? Many of Con-stance and Giles' descendants stayed on Cape Cod for many generations, but that is not the case for Deborah and Damaris. To ring in the New Year, the PHHS is off on a great ad-venture. With the help of web designer Angel Leal, we’ve l a u n c h e d a w e b s i t e , www.pilgrimhopkins.com, to highlight the work being done by the PHHS and to facilitate the sharing of information about our common ancestors. The e-mail address is: [email protected] We consider this a pilot, containing just the nuts and bolts of our aims, membership procedures and activities, line-

age data and a bit of Hopkins history. We know there are many very talented, web-savvy Hopkins cousins out there who could help us enhance this in-formation tool. Your feedback is welcome! In fact, we’d like to set up a “website team” of members with expertise in this area to further develop the website. If you’d like to assist on this front, want to find out more, or just give us your feed-back, please contact [email protected]. For those of you with differ-ent interests and skills, the PHHS is also launching a num-ber of other projects. Getting involved in any of these could make your participation in the PHHS more rewarding. As listed on the “Activities” page

continued on page 4

Message from the Governor

From the Editors


VVVVOLUMEOLUMEOLUMEOLUME 1, I 1, I 1, I 1, ISSUESSUESSUESSUE 2 2 2 2

The Hopkins Chest by Mary Ames Mitchell

I n 1955, when my mother, née Eileen Mary Hopkins,

inherited an old, dark, beat-up wooden chest at the death of her grandmother in Santa Bar-bara, California, she didn’t think much about it. “It was just the piece of furniture on which Grandma kept the an-tique Russian Samovar,” Mom said, “which I found much more interesting.”

Mom didn’t care much about her American heritage since she was born and raised in England. Her American fa-ther, Prince Hopkins, brought her to America after her Eng-lish mother died, and to rescue her from the Blitzkrieg in 1939.

The chest was moved to Pasadena and placed in a dark living room we seldom used. In 1965 it was transported across town, and served as a resting place in Mom’s bed-room for her clothing and ear-rings, when she was too hur-ried to store them properly. Not until 2004, when Mom gave the chest to me, did we place it in some light and look at it closely.

It’s a massive beast, roughly four feet wide, two feet deep and two feet tall. The crudely carved decoration was chiseled and stamped by hand. The lid has no male counterpart to the lock on the chest, So we’ve determined it to be a later replacement. Also, the wooden pegs and hand-hammered metal plate covering the chest’s keyhole

don’t match the more modern hinges with screws attaching the lid. Slots at the back reveal the placement of the original hinges, probably of leather that disintegrated long ago.

A trip to England brought us to the chest’s twin, during a tour of an old manor house in Surrey. The docent reported the twin to be Jacobean, made in 1606.

My great grandfather Charles Harris Hopkins brought the chest to California from Maine sometime after 1850. Most, if not all his an-cestors had sailed from Eng-land to America between 1620 and 1640. Since no seats were available on board ships back then, such chests served as tables and benches as well as containers.

By 1640, Charles’ ances-tors had settled on Cape Cod,

where the chest resided for the first 160 to 184 years. We will never know which ancestor brought it to America, but here are some possibilities.

Charles was a seventh gen-eration descendent of Stephen Hopkins through Stephen’s son Giles, and an eighth gen-eration descendent through Stephen’s daughter Constance. Could the chest have been brought on the Mayflower by one of them? Or by Stephen

continued on page 10

Charles Harris Hopkins (1836-1913)


Page #


clerk. We do not know which reverend per-formed the wedding ceremony. Whittaker was more familiar with Pocahontas, and was the man who helped Christianize her. Buck, on the other hand, was the primary minister of Jamestown, and given the status and prominence of the mar-riage (deemed to be a royal marriage), he may have been the one. In any case, the wedding was almost likely attended by nearly everyone. So when exactly did Stephen leave James-town? There is no record of when he returned to England. The normal “contract” for a Virginia Company employee was for seven years. If Hop-kins were to fulfill his contract, he would have been “free” in mid-1616. But his wife Mary, back in Hursley, died in May 1613, orphaning Stephen’s three children there. Could he have been recalled to England on their account? In September 1614, a letter was sent to Thomas Dale, governor, to send home by the next ship “Eliezer Hopkins.” There is, however, no known Eliezer Hopkins in Jamestown. The original let-

ter does not exist, only a brief summary of the letter jotted down in a Virginia Company log-book. Could the scribe have misread the name? We know that a Stephen Hopkins married Elizabeth Fisher in February 1618 at St. Mary Matellon, Whitechapel, London. This is in the heart of where Separatists were organizing the Mayflower's voyage from the London side. We know from Gov. Bradford that Stephen Hopkins' second wife was named Elizabeth, and we also know that this couple's first child, Damaris, was born about nine months after the Whitechapel wedding. Combining these tidbits it would seem that Stephen returned to England between 1615-1617, and therefore almost certainly was around to witness Pocahontas’ return to Jamestown in March 1612, and her marriage in April 1614. In fact, Pocahontas and John Rolfe left Jamestown to visit London in 1616. Given there were so few ships leaving Jamestown, there is a reason-able chance that Hopkins returned on this ship too, spending several months at sea with two of America’s most interesting figures, Pocahontas the “Indian Princess”, and John Rolfe, the future tobacco entrepreneur. ▄

Pocahontas From page 1

of the website, the five new projects envisioned are:

MtDNA: Documenting all female lines of de-scent

Y-DNA: Documenting all male lines of de-scent

Lineage: Setting up and maintaining a data-base of all lines of descent

Migration: Tracking the migration patterns of the Hopkins family around the coun-try and the world

Signage: Research and marker placement for remembrance of descendants of the Pilgrim Hopkins family

Each team will be able to record its progress and research findings in this newsletter and, in the future, on the website. If you’d like to work on or just find out more about any of these projects, click on the respec-

tive contact listed on “Activities” page of the website: www.pilgrimhopkins.com Depending on the success of these initiatives and on the interests of PHHS members, other projects could be launched in the future. Sugges-tions on new projects can be sent to: [email protected]. Finally, we’d like to remind you that our tri-ennial meeting is coming up, on September 7, 2008, from 9:30 am – 12:30 pm, in the May-flower Room at the Radisson Hotel in Plymouth, MA. As this coincides with the triennial meeting of the General Mayflower Society, it’s advisable to book your hotel rooms early. In addition to electing new officers, we’re hoping to have a speaker and time for networking. So pencil it into your calendar! To all our Hopkins cousins, health and happiness in 2008! Susan B. W. Abanor and Judith McLoud Brister, Editors ▄

Editors From page 2



S tephen Hopkins was a man of many achievements. Although not a Separatist, he

and his family joined the Pilgrims' journey to the New World perhaps because Stephen had al-ready been to the colony in Jamestown and therefore had experience valuable for the May-flower group. Stephen, along with his second wife, Elizabeth, their three children and two in-dentured servants, made the long and dangerous trip aboard the Mayflower in 1620.

Stephen settled in Plymouth with the other Pilgrims. He built one of the larger houses in the colony and, except for a brief stay in Yar-mouth, spent the rest life in the house on the east corner of Main and Leyden Streets. Records indicate that Stephen was a merchant and planter, but another of his enterprises was evi-dently a tavern. In those times taverns satisfied the need for beverages, alcoholic and otherwise, and also served as a center for discussions of issues facing the colony. Carrying the title of Master and Gentleman, Stephen became a leader in the community, par-ticularly in connection with Native American affairs. He was frequently tapped by Captain Miles Standish to be an envoy to the Indians. Chiefs Massasoit and Samoset came to know

Stephen well and Samoset stayed at his house when he visited the colony. Without doubt, Stephen Hopkins contributed to the Pilgrims’ mutually beneficial relationship with the Native Americans during the settlement’s early years. While Stephen had many achievements dur-ing his life, one of his most significant contribu-tions would become apparent only after his death in 1644: the huge number of progeny which resulted from the family he brought to Plymouth and the children he had afterwards. Stephen Hopkins was baptized April 30, 1581, Upper Clatford, Hampshire, England, son of John and Elizabeth (Williams) Hopkins. Stephen married first, Mary (maiden name un-known), probably in Hampshire, England prior to 1604. They had three children, Elizabeth, Constance and Giles. Mary was buried in Hursley on May 9, 1613. Stephen's second wife was Elizabeth. She may have been Elizabeth Fisher, who married a Stephen Hopkins in Lon-don on February, 1617. Prior to their trip on the Mayflower, they had a daughter, Damaris. A son, Oceanus, was delivered in the middle of the ocean, in the cramped quarters of the small, roll-ing Mayflower, probably in October 1620. He died in 1627. Stephen and Elizabeth had five more children after settling in the colony: Caleb in 1623, Deb-orah in 1626, Demaris in 1628 (the first Damaris died before1627), Ruth in 1630 and Elizabeth in 1632. But only four of Stephen's children reached adulthood, married and had children of their own. These were Constance, Giles, Dama-ris and Deborah, each of whom had large fami-lies, which over future generations resulted in thousands of descendents of the original Stephen Hopkins For example, Constance, the oldest of Stephen’s children, married Nicholas Snow in 1627, and over the next 17 years, had Mark, Mary, Sarah, Joseph, Stephen, John, Elizabeth, Jabez, Ruth, and three children whose names have not been conclusively documented--but one

Stephen Hopkins’ Biggest Achievement by Stephen A. Hopkins

Stephen A. Hopkins, summer 2007

Photo by Ellie Johnson

continued on page 8


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B y testing the MtDNA, females and males

can determine the origin of their maternal

line. This line is sometimes called the umbilical

line. The MtDNA can be tested on all people

because mothers pass it on to all children, but it

is dead-ended with the males because only moth-

ers pass it on (see chart on opposite page). A project has been started to follow the MtDNA for Constance Hopkins. This research is being done for Stephen's first wife, Mary. A continuation of the project will test for second wife Elizabeth's MtDNA. This research is important because women

face special challenges in tracing their lineage

and it can help connect married women with

their birth families. Records in early New Eng-

land were kept in the male name. For example,

if Samuel Paine's wife had a child it was re-

corded as the daughter or son of Samuel Paine.

Sometimes the wife's first name was given but

not her father's name, so it is hard to connect the

married women to her parents. MtDNA results

will help identify which families to look at when

researching the records for proof of relationship.

If you know of a direct female line back to

Mary (?) Hopkins or Elizabeth (Fisher?) Hopkins

please e-mail us at: [email protected] ▄

T he Hopkins Surname Project, run by Family Tree DNA, is tracing direct male lineages.

By testing their Y-DNA, male Hopkins descen-dants can verify their relationship to a specific male ancestor and to each other on the paternal line. The tests have different levels of relationship proof according to the number of mutation mark-ers tested. There are tests for 12, 25, 37, and 64 Y-DNA markers. For example the Y-DNA of society PHHS Governor, Chester Hopkins, with documented lineage traced back to Pilgrim Stephen Hopkins, was matched on 37 points to the Y-DNA of a Hopkins in Canada who could only trace his lineage back to the beginning of the 19th century when his parental ancestor

moved from the U. S. to Canada. According to the undocumented family tradition of the Cana-dian Hopkins, he was descended from Stephen Hopkins’ grandson Nathaniel, son of Giles. Chester Hopkins traces his line through Giles’ son Caleb. The matching on all 37 points indi-cates a 99.5% probability that Governor Chester Hopkins and the Canadian Hopkins had a com-mon ancestor going back at least 12 generations. Anyone interested in joining this project can

contact: http://www.familytreedna.com. This

company offers a discount for those who join the

Surname Project and order the test through the

webpage. Also, please contact us at:

[email protected] ▄

Hopkins MtDNA Project

Hopkins Y-DNA Project



Copyright © 2002-2007 Charles F. Kerchner, Jr.

(www.kerchner.com/dna-info.html) Reprinted with permission

Mt-DNA Inheritance Descendants Chart (Maternal Line)

Y-DNA Inheritance Descendants Chart (Paternal Line)


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may have been Constance, who later married Daniel Doane. In 1645, Constance (Hopkins) Snow settled with her family in that part of East-ham which is now Orleans, near where her brother Giles had already settled in 1644. One can assume that the two families were close and supported each other in this new undertaking in an undeveloped area. Stephen was the first settler to construct a wharf in the Plymouth harbor, which he sold in 1637. With the proceeds he built a house in Yar-mouth to “winter his cattle,” according to the Plymouth Colony Records. He was given per-mission to do so provided he not withdraw from the town of Plymouth (Plymouth Colony Re-cords, Vol.1, p.93). Stephen duly returned to his house in Plymouth, where he remained until his death in 1644. His son Giles had in the mean-time moved to Yarmouth in 1638, where he met Catherine Whelden, his bride-to-be. Before Stephen died, he gave the Yarmouth house to Giles. One wonders whether Stephen purposely set this up to provide Giles with independence from himself. During their stay in Yarmouth over the next four years, Giles and Catherine had three chil-dren, Mary, Stephen and John (who died at age three months). In 1644, as noted above, Giles and his young family moved to the Tonset area of what is now East Orleans. Catherine gave birth to seven more children, including Joshua, who was born in June 1657. Joshua’s significance to our branch of the Hopkins family will later be clarified. Giles died in 1690 and there is now a large monument at his grave site in The Cove Burying Ground off Route Six in Eastham. Deborah Hopkins, born in 1626, married An-drew Ring in Plymouth on April 23, 1646. They settled in Plymouth and had six children, five daughters and a son William. Damaris Hopkins, born 1628, married Jacob Cooke in June 1646. From then until 1665, they had seven children, three sons and four daugh-ters. Demraris died probably in 1668 and appar-ently Jacob remarried since he referred to his

“Deare and loving wife, Elizabeth” in his will of December 11, 1675. Moving along to the third generation, the known children of Nicholas and Constance (Hopkins) Snow produced 73 children: 32 sons and 41 daughters. The nine children of Giles and Catherine Hopkins produced 44 children: 26 sons and 18 daughters. One of Giles’ sons, Joshua, born in Eastham in June 1657, married Mary Cole in May 1681, and they had eight children over the next 21 years. One of those was Joshua, who was born on February 20, 1697. He too be-came an important chain in our branch of the Hopkins family. The fourth generation of descendents of Stephen Hopkins were especially prolific. Look-ing at the offspring of Constance Snow alone, 324 children were born among 49 families, a huge jump above the 73 children born in the third generation. A key reason for this amazing growth was the size of these new families, which typically ranged between eight and 12 children. Indeed, John Paine had 16 children (with two wives).The descendents of Giles Hopkins dem-onstrated even greater productivity in the fourth generation, with 348 children among the 46 fami-lies, which included Hopkinses, Merricks, one Mayo, Rings, Cookes, and Mortons. Again most of these families had between eight and 12 chil-dren. Thus, the fourth generation of Snow and Hop-kins descendents, consisting of 95 families, pro-duced 672 children, six times the number of chil-dren born in the third generation. One reason for the large size of families in those times, which played such a prominent role in this huge increase, was of course the lack of birth control. Equally important, however, was the fact that in an economy based mainly on agri-culture and fishing, the labor power of children was a necessity. Big families were still common on Cape Cod through the nineteenth century. My grandfather, Josiah Hopkins, who was born on

Achievement From page 5




The following are excerpts from a January 1976

talk by Levi Thomas Hopkins, the great uncle of

our PHHS Governor Chester Irving Hopkins III.

The Governor’s direct male line is Stephen,

Giles, Caleb, Nathaniel, Isaac, Simon Will

Thayer, Ezra Rogers (Levi Thomas’s father),

Chester Irving, Chester Irving Jr. and PHHS

Governor Chester Irving Hopkins III. The talk

was given to an audience of one hundred

Friends of the Truro Library. In his introduc-

tion, L.T. Hopkins notes that the three factors

that greatly influenced his boyhood were the sea,

the land and the people. The following passages

focus on the sea:

“I n 1893, when I was four years old, the ship Jason was wrecked off Truro Lifesaving

Station. When she struck, the 16 year old cabin boy threw out life jackets to the men from a locker near the foremast. They proceeded aft to lash themselves to the mainmast. Before he could adjust his own jacket, the ship pitched, broke in the middle, and the forward part was thrust high up on the shore by the lofty wave. The cabin boy was thrown in the water but grasped a bale of jute and rode it to shore where he was rescued by the lifesaving crew. He re-mained in Truro for a month to identify the bod-ies of the thirty officers and crew. He was the only survivor. He loved to sing hymns and pump our old organ, so he came frequently to our house after-noons to sing with my three older sisters. At these times he took me on his knee, told me the sea was everywhere in the world, that usually it was helpful but sometimes there were storms. People were everywhere over the world. They were all different – food, clothing, customs—but they were all friendly and always willing to help anyone. So he gave me a friendly attitude toward the sea and the people who lived around it eve-rywhere. He certainly extended my vision be-yond the limits of Truro and Cape Cod. In 1895 Father took a contract to carry the mail from the railroad station to and from the Truro Post office – four round trips a day. So he purchased the old Wilder Hotel, now the Oliver House in Truro center, opposite Pat Duarte’s real

estate and insurance office. Mother ran the hotel and Father attended to the mail. …On a Saturday morning in May of 1902, when I was twelve, I took an ex-press package from the depot to Cat Is-land, down the Cas-tle Road, to the home of Capt. Mat-thias Rick, whose ship was the only one on Georges Banks to survive the October gale of 1841 which decimated the Truro fishing fleet. I had heard about this, had seen the monument to the lost men in Truro Cemetery, and was eager to have his story. When I entered the living room, Capt. Rich, wrapped in his long robe, was seated in his big chair by the fireplace. This morning he smiled, spoke about the beautiful spring day, and seemed so affable that I dared ask him how he survived the October gale when all other Truro ships were lost. He asked me to draw up a stool and then explained. On Saturday, October 2, he watched the storm making and knew that it would be severe since all sings were different from any he had previously observed. At sunset he called in his boats, stowed the hear and mack-erel away and headed for Highland Light, about 120 miles distant, passing other boats not yet underway. At daylight next morning he put on full sail toward Provincetown and at noon, with the storm at its height, was able to keep the boat off Peaked Hill Bars, to round Race Point, and at 6:30 pm, just at dark, to anchor in Provincetown Harbor. When he had finished, the kindly eyes looked at me through the heavy eyebrows above a long white beard, and he said, “Young man, always remember that foresight is better than

My Truro Boyhood: Part I by L. Thomas Hopkins

L.T. & Hester Hopkins



Page #


himself? Could it possibly have sailed with him to America twice, surviving the first trip to Jamestown in 1609 and the shipwreck on Barba-dos?

Perhaps Stephen’s in-laws brought it. Giles’ wife Catherine and her father Gabriel Wheldon could have hauled it from England through Ply-mouth to Yarmouth, where they, Giles and Stephen built the first houses.

Constance’s husband Nicholas Snow could have carried it with him on the Anne when he sailed to Plymouth in 1623. Perhaps our ancestor William Brewster brought it on the Mayflower, though his chest in Pilgrim Hall looks very dif-ferent—more Dutch. Maybe his daughter Pa-tience brought the chest with her when she sailed on the Anne with her sister Fear. Or perhaps Pa-tience’s husband, Thomas Prence of Glouchester, shipped it with him on the Fortune in 1621.

Ancestor Edmund Freeman could have had the chest made in Sussex before bringing it on the Abigail. After landing in Boston Harbor, Ed-mund would have hauled it first to Saugus, then Plymouth, then Duxbury and finally to Sand-wich, which he helped settle in 1637.

It could have belonged to Stephen Tracy, part of the group who emigrated through Holland. Or Samuel Mayo could have brought the chest from Essex, in which case it landed on Long Island before moving to Eastham where many of our ancestors resided. Edward Hawes, part of Free-man’s group in Sandwich, is another possibility.

It’s more certain that by 1700 the chest re-sided in Harwich, either in the home of Joseph Hopkins (Stephen’s great grandson through Giles) or Nathanial Snow (Stephen’s great great-grandson through Constance). These families united when Joseph’s son, Prence Hopkins, mar-ried Nathanial’s daughter, Prence’s third/fourth cousin, Patience Snow, in 1753.

Their son Prince Jr was born in Harwich in 1768 and would have moved the chest off the Cape in 1804 to New Sharon, Maine. Their son Prince III would have taken it with him to North Vassalboro, Maine, where he and his wife Olive Hawes owned the P. Hopkins Hotel. My great

grandfather Charles Harris was their child. Their son Prince IV died at age four.

News of gold in California reached North Vasselboro when Charles was twelve. He made it to San Francisco a few years later. But the chest probably didn’t travel with him quite yet.

Charles landed a lucrative job in San Fran-cisco’s new mint and put enough change in his pocket to finance a return trip in 1865 to Maine to marry his childhood sweetheart, Lizzie A. Cullis. Maybe Charles brought the chest to Cali-fornia when he returned with Lizzie. But the poor girl died soon after in childbirth.

Charles then married Ruth Merritt Mathews, one of the twenty-seven children of Isaac Merritt Singer who died in 1876. Charles received Ruth’s inheritance when she also died during childbirth in 1878, and became the major holder of Singer Manufacturing Company stock.

Charles’s third wife was the daughter of an Englishman Charles had known at the mint. Charles was forty-six when he married eighteen-year-old Mary Isabelle Booth, known as May.

In 1885, May successfully gave birth to Charles’ only child in Oakland, California, my grandfather Prince Charles Hopkins. By 1900 the family had built and moved to a large home in Santa Barbara, which Charles claimed as his resi-

Hopkins Chest From page 3

Mary Ames Mitchell is a writer and de-

signer in San Rafael, California, and cur-

rently Governor of the Redwood Empire Col-

ony of the Mayflower Society. More informa-

tion regarding her genealogical interests and

the book she wrote on her father and the

Ames/Eames family are available on her

website: www.MaryAmesMitchell.com.




October 14, 1848, lived on Tonset Road in East Orleans. By three wives, Josiah had 10 children, including my father, Reuben Hopkins, born on April 4, 1895. It is noted that the figures I used above were derived from "Mayflower Families Through Five Generations, Volume Six, Third Edition, Stephen Hopkins", published by The General Society of Mayflower Descendents in 2001, au-thored by John D. Austin. If we extrapolate the number of descendents who potentially exist today by applying a factor of three, rather than the six-fold figure of the fourth generation, and used the three factor fig-ure over the seven generations which developed after the fourth generation, up to the present, we would have a total in excess of 1.4 million de-scendents. And mind you, this does not include the descendents of Deborah and Demaris Hop-kins. Joshua Hopkins, mentioned above, did little to contribute to the huge surge in the fourth gen-eration. He had only three children, two daugh-ters and a son, Joshua, born in 1725. But that one son was vital in the development of our pre-sent family. This Joshua married Rebecca Spar-row in May 1747 and they more than made up for his father’s shortfall by having 10 children, including the third Joshua, born on September 19, 1753.

From this third Joshua, the Hopkins descen-dents in our chain were as follows: Curtis Hop-kins, born October 26, 1772; Josiah Hopkins, born October 20, 1803; Josiah C. Hopkins, born October 14, 1848; Reuben S. B. Hopkins, born April l5, 1895; and myself, born April 25, 1932. I have eight children, including two sons, Chris-topher and Joshua, and they have fourteen chil-dren, including four boys. And so “the beat goes on”. Everyone in our Hopkins line, going back to Giles Hopkins, has lived continuously in the Tonset area of Orleans. From time to time, maps of different areas of the Town were pre-pared which showed the locations and owners of houses on the roads of the particular area de-picted. We have one such map, circa 1885, which covers the Tonset area. On this map, some 15 houses are indicated as being Hopkins-owned. Our Hopkins line is unique in that they have all lived in this one small area of Cape Cod. In the big scheme of things, however, our line is small and insignificant, compared to the number of Stephen Hopkins descendents now living across our nation --perhaps close to two million persons. Yes, the original Stephen Hopkins ac-complished a great deal during his life. But lit-tle did he dream that he would, over the years, through one generation to the next, have such vast numbers of progeny.

Stephen A. Hopkins was born on April 25

1932 in the home of a midwife, Nettie Knowles,

located next to the Old Cove Burial Ground in

Eastham, Massachusetts. His mother was Lucy

Knowles Hopkins. Ironically, the birthing room

where he was born looked out upon the grave

marker of Giles Hopkins, Mr. Hopkins’ distant

ancestor.

Mr. Hopkins grew up in the Tonset area of

East Orleans, and after graduating from the

University of Massachusetts in Amherst, he

spent two years in the Army stationed in Stutt-

gart, Germany.

He graduated from Boston College Law

School in 1961, and after a year as a law clerk,

he spent the next 36 years as a trial attorney in

Boston. Mr. Hopkins retired in 1998 and now

spends the winter months with his wife, Sylvia,

at their home in Anguilla and the summer

months at their house off Hopkins Lane in the

Tonset area, located on land that originally had

been in the Hopkins family for several centuries.

In his retirement, Mr. Hopkins has written

stories about growing up in Orleans and vari-

ous events in his life thereafter. These interest-

ing stories have been published in two books,

the first “Three Dollars Just Same” and the sec-

ond “Memoirs of a Cape Codder”. The first is

sold in local book stores and the second can be

obtained through Authorhouse.com and Ama-

zon.com

Achievement From page 8


Page #


hindsight.” I had heard this bit of philosophy before, but it never had the meaning of today… The sea was always a friend around us. Sometimes it was quiet, peaceful, beautiful. At other times it was like an enraged, roaring mon-ster. But whatever its moods, the people of Cape Cod could not live without it, for the fish it fur-nished kept them alive. The oil which Father tried out from the cod livers and which Mother fed us each school day morning from four years of age until I graduated from high school is one of the reasons…I am here this afternoon…” ▄

Forthcoming issues of this newsletter will

include L.T. Hopkins’ reflections on the

land and the people

Spread the word! As we enter our third year, we’ll be making special efforts to promote PHHS membership. We encourage you to let your relatives know that the PHHS provides an excellent means of discovering roots and sharing family history. It can also be a unique window into the social history of our country. The more members we have, the greater will be our pool of informa-tion about the Hopkins family heritage. We’ll also have a larger pool of talents to draw on as we embark on our various new projects. So please spread the word!

dence when he became the twenty-fourth member of the California Mayflower Society, established in 1908. The chest remained in Santa Barbara through Charles’ death in 1913 and May’s in 1955. And that leads us back to the beginning of this story. ▄

Permission granted to the Hopkins Family

Association to publish this story and the at-

tached photos in its newsletter. For use else-

where, please contact the author.

Hopkins Chest From page 10

Mayflower movies In her spare time, writer/designer/Mayflower Governor Mary Ames Mitchell has produced five short animated films targeted at her younger generation relatives who prefer to be “spoon fed” their family history. The series, “Ancestors Coming to America, 1609-1623,” focuses on her own Brewster, Hopkins, War-ren, Cooke, Prence, Snow, Annable and Tracy lines. They also provide solid historical con-text of a general nature, however, written sim-ply but not “dumbed down.” The animation is full of whimsical touches. Adults as well as children may want to give these charming “flash films” a try. To date, Mary has pro-duced: “Introduction: The Puritans and the Separatists” (10 min.); “Crossing the Atlan-tic” (19 min); “The First Winter” (12.5 min.); “The Arrival of the Fortune, the Anne and the James,” and “Nineteen Weddings” (12 min.). They can be viewed by visiting Mary’s web-site www.maryamesmitchell.com and click-ing on “Genealogy Trivia.” Future films will cover the settling of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and some smaller side stories, such as the voyage of the Angel Gabriel.

Truro From page 9

Newsletter submissions Please send contributions to the next issue of the newsletter to [email protected] by 15 April 2008. Submissions can range from short letters to the editors, brief articles (500-600 words) on the life and times of the Pilgrim Hopkins family, lineage information, ques-tions and research findings, to Pilgrim Hop-kins Family Increasings (births) and Decreas-ings (deaths), and unusual factual tidbits about Hopkins and his descendants.

Hot off the press Hopkins cousins interested in the migration pat-terns of Stephen Hopkins’ descendants might want to check out the newly released Kennebec: Stories from three families of the river – Weston, Bixby & Hopkins by Dr. Bill Hopkins. This book focuses on some families that moved into Maine in the late 18th century, including the au-thor’s ancestor Dr. Theophilus Hopkins, who moved from Orleans, MA in 1791. From Maine, these descendants of Stephen Hopkins moved to Wisconsin and Washington State. To read the first 15 pages of this book, to purchase it, or to find out more about the author, go to: http://www.blurb.com/user/doch609

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